CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tears pricked Molly’s eyes as she watched Amelia and Harry in the garden. They were so good together, so comfortable with each other already.
As soon as he’d walked into her house, she’d been unable to see anything but him. He was big and broad, but that wasn’t the reason he filled every one of her senses. His scent, the low rumble of his voice, the way he noticed everything around him—everything about Harry spoke to Molly, made her want, made her long for things she’d tried to make herself stop longing for years ago.
Now she was even less sure how this living arrangement was going to work. Not so much from a logistical standpoint—although there was the question of what exactly he was going to do all day while she was at work and Amelia was at school. No, it was more a question of how Molly was going to keep her emotions—and hormones—in check around him.
Because if she felt like a live wire after only twenty-four hours around Harry, then how was she going to deal with the steamy, shaky, desperate desire brewing inside of her after another full day had passed?
Both Amelia and Harry had an armful of produce as they walked into the kitchen, chatting and laughing. “Mom always cuts herself when she’s on prep duty.” Amelia put on an apron. “How are your knife-wielding skills, Dad?”
His eyes lit up, the way they did every time she called him Dad. “Though I’m better at swords, I actually know my way around a knife pretty well.”
“He once won a throwing contest,” Molly told her daughter, knowing she’d appreciate knowing a tidbit like that.
“No way.”
“Way.” But then Molly tried to adopt a serious expression. “You should never throw a knife.”
“Duh.” Amelia rolled her eyes. She turned back to Harry. “So how did you end up throwing them?”
“I used to participate in medieval-themed competitions.”
“Again, your father is being way too modest,” Molly said. “Harry didn’t just participate in the competitions. He won them. Jousting, archery, colf—which is the ancestor of golf. Even horseshoes.”
“Horseshoes?” Amelia giggled. “You’ve got a lot of layers, Dad.”
Grinning at her compliment, he said, “Your mom neglected to mention she was the queen of skittles.”
“That’s probably not a candy-eating contest, is it?”
“Nope.” Molly laughed, glad to feel this relaxed with Harry in her kitchen when she’d been afraid she would feel anything but. “It’s a really old ancestor of ten-pin bowling.”
“That makes sense,” Amelia said to Harry, “because Mom is a killer bowler. They’re always trying to get her to join the league. I thought she should do it just to wear a retro bowling shirt with her name embroidered on it.”
Harry turned to look at her. “You would look cute in one of those bowling outfits with Molly written on it.”
Feeling herself flush, Molly said, “While you guys cook, I’m going to get out of your way.” She wanted to look up how to add Harry’s name to Amelia’s birth certificate. Plus, Amelia and Harry surely needed as much one-on-one time together as possible to really cement their bond. “Holler when dinner’s ready.”
“Wait,” Amelia said. “Before you go, we should take a selfie of our first dinner together.” She gestured for Molly to come stand close to Harry, then squeezed in between them. “Say cheese.”
“Cheese!”
After taking several shots, each of which seemed to require Harry and Molly to stand closer and closer together, Amelia looked at the phone and grinned. “Perfect.” She showed Harry. “Don’t you agree?”
Harry nodded, smiling at Molly as he said, “I sure do.”
And the thing was, though Molly was still trying to get around all the massive changes in her and Amelia’s lives, whenever Harry smiled at her, everything really did feel perfect.
The look in his eyes—as though he knew exactly what she was thinking—had her scurrying out of the kitchen. Hopefully, half an hour of Internet searching would settle her nerves, and her hormones, by the time they all sat down to dinner together.
* * *
No such luck.
It was just that having Sunday night dinner with both Amelia and Harry was so far outside the realm of any dreams Molly had ever had that she could barely eat a bite. How could she when she couldn’t stop marveling over all that had come to be?
She hadn’t eaten much since Harry’s call the previous afternoon, but she could do little more than push her meal around her plate in exactly the way she’d taught Amelia not to.
Though Aldwin had a big bowl of dog food that Harry had brought from the city, Amelia kept sneaking bites of her meal to him under the table. When Harry did the same thing, Molly figured it must be okay. And marveled, yet again, at how they’d gotten here, to having what felt like a normal family dinner with the dog under the table.
Finally, when the plates were cleared and the dishes washed and put away, Molly decided it was the perfect time to show Harry something very important.
Her heart was thumping as she walked over to the tall bookshelf in the corner and pulled out a photo album. “This is the first photo album I put together when Amelia was born. There are more photos, obviously—” She gestured to the overstuffed shelf. “—but I thought this would be the best one to start with.”
He took the photo album from Molly as though it was the most precious thing in the world. “Oh, Amelia,” he said as he looked at the cover picture. She was three months old and grinning for all she was worth. “Look at you.”
His words were thick with emotion, and Molly’s heart clenched tight.
“You’re absolutely beautiful. The most beautiful baby in the entire world.”
“Really?” Amelia scrunched up her face as she looked at the picture, and even Aldwin leaned over to look. “Don’t you think my head looks kind of huge? Like I’m an alien baby instead of human.”
A laugh burst out of Molly, one she’d dearly needed. Amelia had a gift for making funny off-the-cuff comments. She hadn’t won class clown in middle school for nothing. She also had a knack for knowing just what to do, just what to say, to lift people’s spirits. Even a mother on the verge of breaking down in a torrent of tears over all the years, the memories, that Harry and Amelia had lost out on.
“I’ve told her a million times,” Molly said to Harry in as normal a voice as she could manage, “that that’s how big all babies’ heads are.”
He looked at the pictures more closely. “I guess it’s a little on the huge side,” he said, deadpan, “but if you ask me, it’s still perfect. Although I should put on my glasses to make absolutely sure.” He got up and took them out of his leather bag, which he’d brought inside earlier. “I usually only use these for reading, but I don’t want to miss even the slightest detail of these photos.”
Molly braced herself for impact, but once he turned back to them with the glasses on…
Oh. My. God.
She pretty much melted into the floor. She’d guessed he’d be the ultimate hot professor with the glasses, but it turned out that she’d far underestimated his geek-hotness factor.
Thank God he was so focused on the baby pictures that he didn’t seem to notice the effect he was having on her.
He sat down again and picked up the photo album, opening it to a picture the nurse had taken of Molly a few minutes after she’d given birth, holding her newborn daughter swaddled in hospital blankets.
“Molly.” His voice was hushed and raw with emotion as he looked up at her, then back at the picture.
She knew what he saw—how young she looked, how overwhelmed. But also, utterly radiant. And filled with determination to never, ever let her daughter down.
Molly’s chest felt so tight she could barely breathe. “I should…” She ran out of air and had to try again. “I should let you two look at the album together.”
“Wait, don’t you want to tell Harry about the pictures?” Amelia protested.
“I would really appreciate it if you would,” Harry agreed, pinning her with his dark, gorgeously bespectacled gaze. “Where did you have Amelia?”
“River Hospital here in Alexandria Bay. I was lucky to find the job at Boldt Castle during my pregnancy, and they had good health care at the local hospital.”
“Tell him how many hours you were there trying to have me.”
“Quite a few.” Molly didn’t think it would help to make a big deal out of every little thing he’d missed, even if being in labor for so long had been anything but little.
“Thirty-six hours!” Amelia liked making sure people had specific details for everything. Just like her father.
Harry looked horrified. “Was anyone there to help you?”
Molly went to get a glass of water from the sink so she didn’t have to see his expression. “The nurses were great.”
But though she couldn’t see him, she could feel his frustration from where she stood. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
Thankfully, before things got any more tense, Amelia pointed to another picture in the album. “I still have that stuffed pig. I’ll go get it.” She raced out of the room, with Aldwin so close on her heels he nearly tripped her. She came back a few moments later with a faded gray stuffed animal that only vaguely resembled a pig. “Mom says I sucked all the color out of it.”
“That’s the same stuffed animal?” Harry sounded incredulous.
Amelia nodded. “And I have footie pajamas that are almost identical to the ones I wore when I was a baby too.”
“Speaking of pajamas,” Molly said, knowing how tired her daughter must be when she herself was about to keel over at any moment, “you should probably get ready for bed, or getting up for school tomorrow is going to be rough.”
After Amelia left the room, dog in tow, Molly was acutely aware of being alone with Harry. Sitting together on the couch looking at pictures together, it was almost as though they were a normal couple—one who had spent fifteen years together raising their daughter, rather than apart, never speaking, never getting to touch or kiss or hold each other.
Darn it, tears were coming again, just as Amelia came back into the living room looking adorable in her adult onesie pajamas, a teenager who thankfully didn’t mind feeling like a little kid again sometimes.
“They look really comfortable. Do they sell those in my size?” Harry joked when she did a pirouette so that he could see just how well the outfit matched her baby clothes.
“Actually,” Amelia said, “I think they do.”
Molly could easily guess what Amelia was going to get Harry for Christmas. She also knew that he would somehow manage to look gorgeous and sexy in the pajamas, rather than as silly as any other man would have.
“Good night, Dad.” Amelia leaned over to kiss Harry on the cheek and hug him.
Molly had never seen him look so close to tears—or so blissfully happy—all at the same time. “Good night, honey.” He kissed and hugged her back.
Amelia was beaming as she came over to Molly, who pulled her into a tight embrace. “I love you, kid. You’re amazing.”
“So are you, Mom.” Amelia was halfway out of the room when she turned back. “Oh, I wanted to ask—Dad, can you walk me to school tomorrow morning?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Great! We need to head out by seven thirty.” She blew a kiss at them and was gone to join Aldwin in her bedroom.
“She hasn’t let me drop her at school since she turned twelve,” Molly remarked once Amelia had closed her door, trying to act as though he hadn’t made her want to cry with his heartfelt reaction to the baby pictures in one moment…then jump him when she looked at him in his glasses the next. “She’s obviously really looking forward to showing you off. Normally, she rides her bike or walks with a friend.”
“I’m really looking forward to meeting her friends and teachers.” As he spoke, he still looked a little emotionally overcome by Amelia’s good-night kiss. “Do you know of anyone who could watch Aldwin for the day tomorrow?”
“A friend of mine owns a doggie day care a couple of blocks away,” Molly said. “But why do you need someone to watch him?”
“Because I’d like you to come with us to her school tomorrow morning, and I’m not sure we should leave him alone in your house until we can be positive he won’t go nuts pining for Amelia.” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “That is, if you can still get to work on time?”
She nodded. “You’re right, I probably should go with you. If only to make sure Amelia actually gets to her first class on time, when I’m sure she won’t want to let you go.”
Just the way I never did.
* * *
After Molly sent a quick text to her friend about dropping Aldwin off in the morning, she said, “Before I head to bed, I wanted to chat with you about something.”
Noting how serious she looked, he nodded. Strangely, she also looked relieved when he slid off his glasses. “Sure, what is it?”
“Now that we know for sure that you’re Amelia’s father, you should be on her birth certificate. I did a little research online while you were making dinner, and it looks like a fairly straightforward process. If you’d like, after we drop Amelia off at school, we could go to the Town Clerk’s office to fill out the paperwork.”
If Harry had any doubts about how badly Molly wanted to set things right, this erased them all. Not only did she want to make things official, she wanted it to happen as soon as possible.
“That would be great. But what about your job? You never know how long something is going to take in a government office. I’d hate for you to get in trouble with your boss.”
“Stanley will understand, and there are a couple of people who can cover for me at the store on fairly short notice if we show up at the Clerk’s office and there’s a huge line. In any case, all of that takes second place to making sure you have legal custody rights. I don’t want anyone to ever doubt that she’s yours.”
Despite the strange circumstances that had brought them here, it was really nice sitting in Molly’s living room, talking as the stars twinkled outside the windows. Was this what they could have had all this time if they hadn’t split up?
Fifteen years of nights on the couch together. Nights where he looked into her eyes and saw everything he wanted in their blue depths. Nights where he reached for her and pulled her close to feel her warm and soft and so damned sweet against him as they—
Molly suddenly jumped off the couch. Her skin was flushed, her lips rosy, as though he’d actually been kissing her instead of just fantasizing about it.
“It’s late. I should go to bed. I’ll check your room to make sure you have everything you need before I turn in.”
But he couldn’t let her go. Not yet. He reached for her hand and wrapped his around it. “This could have been so hard. But you’re doing everything you can to make sure it isn’t. Thank you, Molly. For doing such a great job with Amelia all these years, for letting me stay in your house, and for researching how to change the birth certificate.”
And just for being you.
She gave him a tremulous smile, then pulled her hand from his and dashed out of the room.
Wanting nothing more than to go after her, Harry forced himself to pick up the photo album instead and take a seat in the armchair beside the bookshelf. Putting his glasses back on, he opened the album and lost his breath all over again at the beautiful photos of Amelia as an infant—and of Molly as a radiant young mother.
Every photo only made him more desperate to rewind time. To get a chance to do things over and get it right this time.
He traced his finger over a picture of Molly and Amelia by the water. Molly was wearing the baby on her chest in a wrap of some brightly colored fabric, and both of them had on hats that looked like they were about to fly off at any moment. Amelia’s tiny hands were in Molly’s.
Harry felt himself choke up as he wished that he could have been the one taking the picture all those years ago. But before any tears could fall, his gaze caught the photo on the facing page. Molly was holding Amelia up high, and the baby was laughing as her mother made a funny face at her.
Though he was still choked up, he couldn’t stop smiling.
Molly had always been great at making faces. She’d never worried about not looking pretty. She’d just wanted to make the people she cared about happy.
Harry wasn’t sure she’d ever realize just how happy she’d made him when they were eighteen. But even if she had, would that have made any difference when his family life had been such a mess?
He’d told Molly that sometimes the best thing to do was to look forward—and he’d meant it. But that didn’t mean history wasn’t important. Tonight, he was going to take this chance to go through these photo albums to learn about the history Amelia and Molly had built without him.
And then one day, if he was really lucky, maybe there would be a new photo album with him in it too.
* * *
Sleep came in fits and starts. Utterly exhausted, Molly had fallen asleep the moment her head had hit her pillow, but it hadn’t lasted long. After she’d awakened a couple of hours later, she tossed and turned for so long she decided that getting up and making some hot tea and a snack might help her sleep.
Wrapping her robe around herself, she tiptoed out into the hall and was surprised to find Harry’s bedroom door open—and his bed still made. She could hear dog and teenager snores coming from Amelia’s bedroom across the hall.
But where was Harry?
She found him in the living room, fast asleep in the armchair, surrounded by photo albums. One was still open on his lap. His glasses, which he must have put back on after she went to bed, had fallen off and landed on it.
Walking quietly across the braided rug, she knelt beside him to see where he had stopped.
It was a photo taken when Amelia had won a prize from the county for the best poetry reading. Molly had her arms wrapped around her daughter, while Amelia proudly held up her trophy.
Molly remembered thinking how every sacrifice had been more than worth it, just to know that her daughter was so confident, so happy with who she was. Amelia would never let a boy—or anyone else—treat her badly, because she knew her own worth. It was the most important thing Molly could teach her.
Molly took the album off Harry’s lap and put it back on the shelf. She was torn about whether to wake him. But she didn’t want his neck and back to hurt the way hers would if she slept in a chair all night.
She put her hand on his arm and said, “Harry.”
He had never been a very sound sleeper. Probably because he had always felt that he had to wake at a moment’s notice if one of his family members needed him. But tonight she was having a heck of a time trying to wake him, going so far as putting her hands on his shoulders—his very broad shoulders—to give him a gentle shake.
His eyes finally opened, blurry with sleep. Likely, he would be wondering where he was. She was about to say something when he whispered, “Molly.”
Her name was so full of longing, so full of desire, so full of passion, that she was held captive.
He lifted his hands to her face, cupping her cheeks, stroking her skin with the pads of his thumbs. “So beautiful,” he murmured.
Then his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her.
And…oh God…why would anyone in their right mind want to stop a kiss like this?
His mouth was warm and sweet tasting from the fruit salad they’d had for dessert and, most of all, desperate.
He kissed her like he’d been waiting forever for the chance to kiss her again.
Like she was not only all he’d ever wanted, but all he would ever want again.
Like nothing but Molly mattered.
Like he never wanted to ever let her go.
Molly’s head spun. With pleasure. With need. With a desperation that matched his.
It was impossible to keep from running her hands down from his shoulders to the strong muscles of his back, remembering with every inch she covered just how magnificent he’d been. And learning that he was even more so now.
Her gasps of pleasure were echoed by his groans, and when he moved to pull her onto his lap, there was nowhere else she could ever imagine wanting to be.
Until her foot struck the photo albums stacked beside the chair, and they fell one after the other onto the floor in a chorus of thumps that finally knocked a little sense back into her. Enough, at least, to make her realize that she needed to get off Harry’s lap.
Especially given that he was staring at her as though he was wondering how she’d gotten there in the first place.
“Molly?” He said her name again, but this time it was a question. “You’re real.”
Oh no…
Had he been asleep the whole time?
For the best kiss of her life?
“You were asleep, and I was just trying to wake you up.” Her words came out in a rush as she fumbled to get off him.
His hands tightened around her for a split second before he let her go. “I kissed you.” He sounded a little shocked, which only made her flush hotter at what had just happened between them.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to,” she said. “You must have been dreaming and—”
“You kissed me back.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. What could she say? After all, it wasn’t like she could claim dreaming as an excuse for her behavior.
In the end, all that came out was, “Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
She hastily walked backward through the room, away from the greatest temptation she’d ever known, then lifted her hand in an awkward wave.
“Good night.” She turned and fled back to her room with neither the tea nor the snack that she’d originally come out for, closing her door behind her, with a racing heart.
And lips that tingled from the best kiss of her life.
With the only man alive who could make her forget everything but him.